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Death Cab For Cutie launch anti-autotune campaign at Grammys

Band stand up to voice-aiding programmes

February 10, 2009 | 6 Comments
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Death Cab For Cutie have launched a campaign against autotuning – the process of a singer having their voice aided in a studio by a computer programme.

The band wore suits and blue pin badges to the Grammy Awards on Sunday (February 8), which they said was their way of raising awareness of the issue, reports Entertainment.uk.msn.com.

"Autotuning is a digital manipulation, a correction of a singer's voice that is affecting literally thousands of singers today and thousands of records that are coming out," frontman Ben Gibbard said.

He added: "We just want to raise awareness while we're here and try to bring back the blue note... The note that's not so perfectly in pitch and just gives the recording some soul and some kind of real character. It's how people really sing."

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Comments (6)

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whatawasteoftime

Feb 10, 2009

This band is so dreary that it has to do weak PR stunts like this to get in the news.

IndieWriter

Feb 10, 2009

a thinly veiled 'ban RnB' there - can't say i disagree. Apart from the actual singers like beyonce and rihanna the rest of it is indistinguishable shite

MartynDavenport

Feb 11, 2009

lol @ 'whatawasteoftime' just because you're not intelligent enough to recognise the genius of Ben Gibbard and obviously judge music by 'what sounds the prettiest' doesn't mean this is for PR. He's damn right as always, and if you had even the vaguest musical knowledge you'd probably realise that Death Cab are one of the least media motivated bands around. More bands should stand up for this sort of thing, ban the digitally processed shite!

whatawasteoftime

Feb 11, 2009

I've heard their "music", it's terrible, forgettable dross. PR STUNT.

gazhat

Feb 11, 2009

..........agreed - ban voice-aiding programmes, X-Craptor, American Arsehole, but i agree with whatawastoftime, DCFC, awful dreary boring band...zzzzzzzzzz

Element_Al

Jun 11, 2009

Of course they did it for PR...if you had a platform like the grammy's - you'd do it too. But why not raise awareness that this autotune crap is crap? Remember when talent was a prerequesite for being a great artist? DCfC is just trying to bring that back. Else we're going to end up with this kind of stuff everywhere: http://coolintl.com/?p=129Dumb.